How Tesla Got Away With Its Battery Ruse for Years
How Tesla Got Away With Its Battery Ruse for Years
We were easy marks.
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Not a Tesla apologist, but this article kind of contradicts itself.
They argue that Tesla is lying about vehicle range, but then saying that Tesla is guilty of normalizing building vehicles with oversized batteries which customers don't need (because they only drive 40 miles a day) which is putting a strain on the battery supply chain.
Wouldn't Tesla lying about range be them minimizing their impact on the battery supply chain?
And the rest of the article goes on to complain about the battery arms race which I agree with (anybody who can charge at home doesn't need more than 100 mile range for their second vehicle), but that's hardly Tesla's fault. On every thread discussing EVs for the past 10 years, there's always some petrolhead complaining that EVs aren't able to easily complete the 15 hour, 900 mile, road trip they apparently drive every week. The market wanted a replacement for gas cars, Tesla did what they could to meet that demand.
Also, the articles linked about Tesla lying about range mostly discuss how all EVs fall short of EPA range when tested by Car and Driver. That suggests the blame lies with EPA testing, and Car and Driver even has a suggestions on what to change about the EPA's methodology.
Wouldn’t Tesla lying about range bee then minimizing their impact on the battery supply chain?
Not at all, they’re still stuffing their cars with lots of big batteries, and then lying about the range those batteries give.
But if they wanted to actually meet their claimed range, wouldn’t they need even bigger batteries?
If the point of cheating on range estimates is to trick consumers into accepting smaller batteries with lower range, is that not exactly what the author would like to see happen?
No, because the author wants honesty. They’re still packing more batteries than these vehicles need, which is a problem.
The science says they are packing more batteries than the vehicle needs, but the consumers say otherwise.
All manufacturers, Tesla included, consistently find their long range versions significantly outselling the short range ones.
In Tesla’s case it got to the point where demand for short range versions was so low, it was cheaper in some cases to only make larger range versions and limit the range with software. Rather than maintaining multiple production lines.
In the late 90s GM’s made the first moderately popular modern production electric car in North America. The initial version had a 55 mi range on traditional lead acid batteries (when measured using the 2019 EPA standard protocol, it was advertised as having a 78 mi range using the protocol at the time). That was enough range to meet the daily driving needs of 98% of the population. They tried selling it with the message that’s enough for your needs, it didn’t sell well. Later versions used NiMH batteries and had almost twice that, it still wasn’t a big seller.
Both then and still today, the lowest range EVs from all manufactures, which have at least double the original EV1 range, consistently and significantly undersell the longer range models because consumers think they need to have hundreds of miles of range so that they can take the occasional unplanned road trip.
The need to significantly over-provision the range on an electric vehicle is due to consumer demand not misleading marketing.
Your story with GM is... false. It's just false.
People were literally lining up at dealers trying to buy the EV1. Their waitlists overflowed.
GM produced that car because of the California Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate (which yes, existed in the 90s). But they didn't quietly roll over and accept the mandate, they also, in parallel, mounted huge legal and astroturf battles against the law.
Which were successful. The law was killed. And what did GM do with their backstock of vehicles? Did they go down those waitlists and sell off the fleet? No, they packaged them onto car carriers with people literally camped out at dealers to buy them, watching and crushed them.
They had a successful plan to sell profitable EVs that people wanted. It wasn't nearly as profitable as selling ICE vehicles, but they knew the changing regulatory structure in CA would change that and hedged the bets. But also invested heavily in killing that regulatory change, and the moment they did, they intentionally killed the car to stop more consumers from having and liking them.
Wagoner has said the biggest mistake he ever made as [GM] chief executive was killing the EV1, GM's revolutionary electric car, and failing to direct more resources to hybrid gas-electric research.
PS: they joined the 2019 Trump lawsuit to fight new CA emission standards.
Both things aren't great. Both neither excuses the other.
They shouldn't lie about their battery range. Full stop.
They shouldn't overstuff the car with unnecessary and environmentally costly batteries, but as stated above, there's some market force here as well.
These two things really have nothing to do with each other. They're independent situations that exist whether the other does or not.
They shouldn’t lie about their battery range. Full stop.
Agreed, but the article isn’t really making the case that they‘re even doing that.
The linked articles: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a43657072/evs-fall-short-epa-estimates-sae-article/
https://apnews.com/article/technology-electric-vehicles-21622a87f9dbbc5e29c05bc414442142
https://www.autonews.com/mobility-report/heatwave-reduces-range-some-evs-31
Are not about Tesla.
Even the article about getting fined in Korea is about them failing to advertise cold weather impact on performance, which again affects all EVs.
They go on to complain about how a software update reduced battery range. If you look into that update, it’s simply adding a diagnostic that detects a very real battery fault. People have taken apart packs with the BMS_u029 error and found dead cells that could catastrophically fail. It’s effectively a dead pack, and on a 10 year old car, I t’s unfortunate, but bound to happen to some people.
And the other software killing range issue was a single event where Tesla accidentally unlocked extra range on a battery that the user didn’t pay for. The software update “fixed the glitch,” but they ended up unfixing it for free anyway.
This article is a biased hit piece that fails to even address what its headline lays out.
anybody who can charge at home doesn’t need more than 100 mile range for their second vehicle
Wow way to throw nuance and individual needs totally out of the window.
Do you even take yourself seriously?
Sorry, “most people”.
50% of Americans live in detached housing and could fairly easily get a home charging set up. Of those Americans who own more than one vehicle, I would assume that they rarely need to drive both vehicles over a long distance since I’m assuming that most families can fit into one car.
100 miles is more than enough for the average 30-40 mile American commute, but obviously not enough for a road trip.
Sorry for the oversimplification. I’m mostly reacting to many EV detractors who want to replace their 2-3 350 mile range ICE vehicles with what they see as equivalent 350 mile range EVs when the use case (as this article points out) is entirely different.
I personally own a 300 mile range EV, and I rarely use more than 20% of its battery in a day.
You also gotta remember things also get more complicated when it gets cold. Suddenly that 40mile commute can become problematic in sub zero temperatures. Maybe you could make the trip but now you can't do those after work errands or whatnot.
A commuter car with 125-150mile range might be more practical as a 2nd car.
Unless it's an LFP car you're not supposed to consistently use top/bottom 10-20% either reducing range if you dont want to shortern its lifespan, but LFP perform worse in cold weather so again, 100miles probably isn't enough for that use case for a substantial amount of people in colder climates
Edit: I checked a random website and it had 25 US states with a average winter temperature below freezing temperatures. Not considering other places like Canada or Europe either.
FWIW I also own a long range EV, but I would definitely consider a shorter range one for 2nd vehicle, and use the long range one for our trips. We wouldn't have a use for 2 long range ones.